The Breakfast Bar
by RinnySega
Summary: Mike Schmidt sits alone for one last meal before starting his new job at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza


I wonder now what all my friends are doing now that they're dead.

I sat in a breakfast bar off a South Carolina interstate and heard that when you die, you continue on in the afterlife doing what you did while you were still alive. An Elvis song came on the jukebox, right about the time the waitress, Margo, brought me my second cup of coffee. The couple behind me, an old timey pair in plaid and leather shoes, tossed around their theories on the subject.

They wondered if Elvis continued making music in Heaven after putting the metaphorical gun to his head, the same manner in which Marilyn Monroe would continue making movies or Ernest Hemmingway would continue writing books. I wondered, while my eggs sizzled on the grill over the counter, what my friends were doing.

There were four of them who died, even though the paper ran it as five. It's what you get in a small town like this, no facts checked, no resources confirmed before print. All four, still children by a man who, as the newspaper would say, lured them to a backroom at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza and slashed them to pieces, the bodies never to be found. The man in question, found a week later at a rundown motel, took the blame and a bullet to his head. Suicide, cameras rolling.

I've heard rumors of a golden bear that haunts the pizzeria. And to my luck, they're hiring.

I put my cup to my lips and let the steam burn the bite marks of my skin, counting down until nightfall when I put on my badge and step foot inside once again. The last place I saw my friends alive. The place I heard is haunted by their souls.

And when my food is delivered to me, I smile, thinking about what they are doing.

Gordon loved food. It was only worse that his metabolism didn't love him back for it, as he weighed well over a hundred and fifty pounds at such a young age. I watched him as he lied to Jeffrey's mother, saying that he only had one slice of cake and wanted seconds when really he had found a way to steal seven. Typical Gordon. He was always very sweet. I wondered if he still found a way to rustle in Heaven's kitchen, never getting caught when no one was looking.

Bethany loved rabbits. For her seventh birthday only three months prior, her parents surprised her with a speckled, gray and brown little thing she named Bonnie after her favorite character at the pizzeria. They wore matching red bows, and I overheard her crying to her mom on the phone that Bonnie was sick in its crate. Poor thing never made it home to know her rabbit was fine, and I wondered if she continued to care for all the rabbits in Heaven's meadow. It would seem fair since she went to her grave, not knowing if Bonnie would survive the night.

Ralph loved pirates. The night of the birthday party, I saw him always loitering around Pirate's Cove. He had his dad and five older brothers to thank for his bloodlust, always exposing him to violent stories and movies, but he had such a childlike innocence with his tattered eye patch and dollar store hook for his hand. He only stayed around the party long enough for song and cake before he was back at the stage, waiting all night for Foxy to make his appearance for the crowd. It didn't help that the bite of '87 only made his fascination grow, his boyhood imagination bursting with the thought of his favorite pirate biting the forehead off a small child, the stuff of nightmares. But for him, wonder. I wondered if he was a pirate on his ship of dreams, if such people were allowed in his version of Heaven.

And Jeffrey loved Freddy. That's why he begged his mother to host his birthday party at that restaurant, to see his icon again on stage, which was a rare commodity for children of over protective parents—parents afraid their child's forehead might be next. I wouldn't know. I never had kids. I only had friends. I wondered if he would still be my friend, even though his parents never told him to be around strangers, especially strangers who followed his best friends from the playground to their private party at a family pizzeria.

I finished my meal and made my way to my car. My shift would start soon.

Now that the buzz has died down, and that man took the frame and the fall, I was curious to see what my old friends were up to, and if they'd recognize Mr. Mike and play hide and seek with me one last time.


End file.
